Polish metalworkers fighting casualisation

Information from a LibCom poster and from ZSP, the Polish section of the International Workers’ Association.

On Monday the second of April a few hundred metalworkers at Huta Batory steel mill started a wildcat strike against layoffs and the use of agency labour. 50 people were sacked last week whilst temporary agency workers were brought in on half the wage of an ordinary worker. The managers stated that the plan was to make the workforce 80% agency labour, the workers demanded the reinstatement of the dismissed workers, respecting of the existing collective agreement and the direct employment of those agency workers. They did not wait for union negotiations and just went on strike.

The next morning hundreds of local people came to support the strike. At around 5am ambulances, fire engines and the police arrived. The company had also hired security guards from the city of Bydgoszcz to break the strike, however once they saw the angry crowds they turned round and went back home.

Watch this amazing video of Ruch Chorzów football fans outside the factory.

The workers refused to let trucks carrying the goods they had made be transported outside of the factory.

In retaliation the company announced that the factory would be closed and immediately sacked 110 workers who were seen to be troublemakers.

ZSP are asking that people send messages to Roman Karkosik’s company, Alchemia SA, who control the factory. Roman Karkosik is one of the 100 richest people in Poland and Alchemia is a very profitable company.
They ask that people be imaginative but that it is a good start to say you support the workers of Huta Batory.